A Welcome Intruder
by BrookeGreene
Summary: Gil goes home to an empty house, but it turns out it's not so empty after all... GSR, small spoilers for Goodbye & Goodluck and The Case of the Cross Dressing Carp.


**Disclaimer: **Well, I own 4 of the seasons on DVD... does that count as owning it? Other than those 4 DVD seasons, I do not own anything of CSI.

**Author's Note: **This is my Christmas present to my stalkee, thegreatbluespoon, because apparently I'm supposed to get her one now... This story has nothing to do with Christmas, it's actually set on August 15th, but it wouldn't work as well if I wrote it during Christmas time. I wrote most of this between the hours of 12 AM and 4 AM, so some of it may not make sense and _a lot_ of it is cheesy fluff. I hope you enjoy it and please reveiw whether you do or not!

Major thanks to Ashley (**theyHAUNTme**) for beta-ing this for me and for the help with the title and everything!

* * *

"Go home Gil," Catherine said firmly, "You've been here since yesterday afternoon, you haven't slept or eaten and frankly, you look like a mess." 

"I can't go home yet," Grissom gestured at the immense pile of paperwork on his desk, emphasizing his point. "I have all this to do; Ecklie wouldn't let me leave if I tried."

That was a lie; Ecklie had also told him to go home, but Grissom didn't want to. Home wasn't home without Sara, it was a painfully empty house where he occasionally visited to sleep or eat. She had been gone exactly nine months now, and he missed her like hell, nothing was the same without her. Before she left, home had been an escape from his job and all the death that accompanied it. Now it was the other way around; work was an escape from his personal life. Or rather, lack of a personal life.

"I talked to Ecklie," Catherine informed him, "and he said that if you don't go home now, he's going to have to suspend you, you're starting to slip up on cases. Your birthday is in two days, go home and call Sara or something."

His head snapped up at the mention of her name. It wasn't so common these days, it seemed that everyone had either forgotten her or just didn't care anymore. Except for Greg, he made an effort to mention her at least once a day, which could be very annoying if he was trying to forget she had left. Not that he tried that very often, it was a next-to impossible feat and he didn't fool himself into thinking otherwise.

"I'm not going to call Sara." He said stubbornly, "if she wants to talk, she'll call. I don't want to bother her."

"God Gil, do you realize how incredibly dumb you sound? Sara loves you, you know she does, and you aren't going to bother her by calling her every once in a while. In fact, you're probably bothering her more by _not_ calling! She probably thinks you've forgotten about her or moved on."

"I'll never forget her." Gil said simply. "Whether she comes back in five days or five years, I'll never move on and I most certainly will not forget her. Sara knows that, I'm sure of it."

Catherine came closer and bent right over his desk so that her face was right in his. An alarming amount of cleavage was visible above the neckline of her shirt, forcing him to look directly up at her face.

"Are you sure about that Gil, are you really sure?" she interrogated him the same way she had interviewed a pedophile earlier that night. "You don't call her; I'm assuming you don't email her, if I was her I'd think you had moved on."

She really knew how to get to him; she was actually starting to make some sense. They hadn't talked or communicated at all in at least a month, probably more like two, and _he_ was beginning to think she'd forgotten _him_.

"Maybe I will call her," Gil said after five minutes of silence, "I mean, how much can it really hurt? Yeah, I think I'll go home and call her right now."

Catherine smiled, her work was done. Now he was going to call her, she would realise how much he missed her, and come home! Maybe that was getting a little carried away… but in all seriousness, she was really proud of herself! Convincing Gil Grissom to go home was a difficult task, and very few had ever accomplished it.

* * *

When Gil opened the door, he expected Hank to come running and slobber all over him, but the big dog didn't appear. It was strange, he was _always _there to greet him when he got home from work… and on top of that, he swore he could hear water running in the bathroom. It could be just the pipes, but something told him it wasn't. He wasn't dumb enough to get his hopes up about Sara being home, but that was a possibility… right? It wasn't very likely, but it wasn't completely out of the question either. He decided he should at least check it out, it could be something bad. Maybe he had left the tap on when he left for work. 

He opened the door of the master bathroom and immediately felt the change in temperature. It wasn't exactly cold in the rest of the house, but the bathroom could only be described as hot and steamy. Gil slowly pulled back the shower curtain and felt his heart simultaneously leap and break in two at what he saw. Sara was home all right, but she didn't look very happy about it. She was sitting on the bottom of the tub, hugging her knees to her chest and sobbing.

"Sara…" he breathed, putting one hand against the wall so he wouldn't faint, "I…you're back…?"

She looked up, eyes red and puffy from crying for what had obviously been a long time.

"Hi Gil…" Sara said in a shaky voice, "I'm uh, I just…I needed to see you…I needed…to come home."

His clothes wouldn't come off fast enough. He practically tore them off before stepping into the shower to join his fiancé. She offered him her hand, which he quickly took, and helped her stand up, while pulling her close to him.

"Sara…" he whispered into the crook of her neck, "I missed you... please don't leave me again."

"I won't," she choked out. "I've missed you too much to leave again."

Grissom was having trouble believing that all this was real. One minute, he was miserable and lonely, the next, his lover was home and he was holding her in his arms, neither of them wanting to ever let go.

It seemed like one of those Disney movies, where the prince would rescue the princess and they'd all live "happily ever after". The difference was, in the Disney movies, the princess would have stopped crying as soon as she saw her 'one true love', instead of soaking his shoulder. Actually, it was nothing like a Disney movie, he was never going to compare their relationship with that again. They had a real relationship and had known each other for over nine years, not just a few days.

He held her until the hot water ran out and they were standing in the middle of a stream of freezing cold water. They both jumped at the harsh change and hastily got out before shutting off the water.

"Promise me something Gil," Sara said quietly, "promise me that when we get married, you won't turn into some jerk that tries to control everything I do and only needs sex from me."

"How can you even _consider_ that I might do something like that?" he said indignantly. "I _love_ you, I love you because you're _you_…I'm not in it for the sex. I would never be stupid enough to control you either; I know you wouldn't put up with that."

Sara grabbed two towels from the closet, wrapped one around herself and handed the other one to him before speaking again.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you that, I know you aren't like that. It's just… I watched this movie on the plane. There was this woman in a really bad marriage, and she said that when she got married, the guy changed. It made me think; abusive and just generally bad relationships don't normally start out that way. You always hear that when people get married, they change. I don't want you to change."

"I don't want you to change either; I love you the way you are. But I still want to marry you, do you want to marry me?" he asked.

She was staring at him. Not in a creepy way, but it was still a little disconcerting.

"Sara?" he waved a hand in front of her face, "are you all right?"

"I just realised that I haven't kissed you in nine months. We stood in the shower together for over an hour and we still haven't kissed."

Wow, he hadn't really realised that. He was going to have to rectify that, and now that he was thinking about it, it was going to have to be soon. Just as he was leaning forward, Sara beat him to it and crashed her lips up against his. Gil wrapped his arms around her slim waist and kissed her right back with all the passion he had been keeping inside for the past nine months.

Sara broke away and looked up at his face, grinning wider than he had seen in a long time. He felt the corners of his own mouth turn up in an unstoppable smile, and pulled her even closer.

"I'll take that as a 'yes' then," he whispered into her ear.

"Babe that was a definite 'yes'. Now take me to bed so you can find out what a 'hell yeah' feels like."

* * *

Sara burrowed deeper under the covers, trying to get warm. She considered putting her clothes back on but it was her first night back with Gil and she wanted to feel him against her skin as she slept. 

"I have something for you," he told her, trying to fight the nervousness in his voice.

"Hmm?" Sara snuggled closer to him, "You didn't have to get me anything… if one of us gives the other a gift, it should be me to you; I'm the one that left you and Hank all alone. Where is Hank anyway?"

"I… am not sure… he didn't come to the door when I came home."

She lifted her head from his chest and looked around the room. "There he is," she pointed in the corner.

"Oh. Anyways, back to what I was saying," Grissom said, "I got you something _before_ you left and I didn't get a chance to give it to you because… you left."

He reached into the top drawer and pulled out a small black box.

"You're friggen kidding me," Sara said flatly. "You did _not_ buy me an engagement ring!"

"I did." He opened the box and showed her a silver band with two reasonably sized pale purple diamonds resting on top.

"Gil… you really didn't have to get me this," she told him. "I love you, I know you love me, I know we're going to get married, and I don't need a ring to tell me that."

"I want you to have it. You deserve to have it, and I'm going to give it to you."

He took the ring out of the box and slid it carefully onto her finger. He loved the fact that he could look at it any time and remember the day he had asked, and the day she'd said yes.

"It's beautiful," Sara said in awe. "Tell me you didn't spend _too_ much on it."

"I didn't spend anything like $10 000, if that's what you mean," he assured her. "I know you wouldn't want me to spend a ridiculous amount on you."

"Well, thank you for the gesture, I love it."

She kissed him lovingly and resumed her position under the blankets while Grissom watched her. He loved being able to just look at her again. At the beginning of their relationship, he would stay awake for hours and just watch the rise and fall of her chest, or count the freckles on her various limbs. It had been a while since he had done that, but now that he had been away for so long, he had renewed appreciation of her beauty, which was vast. He wanted to feel her heart beat inside her chest and wrap his hands in the curly hair that framed her beautiful face.

When he pressed his lips to the pulse point on her long neck, he let them linger there for a few minutes, feeling how relaxed her heartbeat was. He could sense how close she was to sleep and kissed her goodnight on those soft lips of hers.

"Hey Gil," Sara whispered, voice sleepy, "I was eating some yogurt earlier, and I wondered something. Why are all the spoons blue?"

Gil opened his mouth to answer but she had already fallen into the wonderful land of sleep. That particular explanation would have to wait for the next morning. Now, he was just going to watch his lover for a few more minutes before joining her in that land.

* * *

That was really cheesy wasn't it? Tell me what you thought in a reveiw, come on, it can be my Christmas present:D Oh yeah, to **LadyOfWolves**, you better give me a reveiw (insert threat here)! 

Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays everyone!


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